Mexican military acts against corrupt cops

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MEXICO CITY – Local police were relieved of duty Tuesday in the border cities of Nuevo Laredo, Matamoros and Reynosa as army soldiers disarmed the officers and searched for evidence that might link them to drug traffickers.

In Nuevo Laredo, soldiers surrounded police headquarters at 8 a.m. and ordered officers to remain inside. Federal soldiers conducted a similar operation in Tijuana in January 2007, at the beginning of a yearlong offensive against Mexico’s drug cartels and their allies in the police.

During the first 14 months of his rule, President Felipe Calderón has sent federal soldiers to at least a half dozen states, including Michoacán in the south and Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico. Calderón has vowed to break the power of the traffickers, who wield wide influence over local authorities and intimidate local media.

At least two drug-trafficking organizations are fighting for control of Nuevo Laredo and its multiple border crossings, a lucrative source of income for smugglers. President Vicente Fox, Calderón’s predecessor, sent army soldiers there in 2005.

But the violence has continued unabated throughout Calderón’s presidency. Several observers in Nuevo Laredo say it is an open secret that many members of the local police cooperate with traffickers.

In an interview this month with the Spanish newspaper El País, Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora acknowledged that during a year of purges of federal, state and local police, the Calderón government had only begun to attack the problem.

“There are municipal police forces that have collapsed, and that function more as support staff to organized crime rather than as guardians of public safety,” Medina Mora said.

Last week, federal police arrested 11 men in Nuevo Laredo, including four police officers, who were said to be operatives for the so-called Gulf Cartel.

Tuesday, all on-duty police officers were confined to their stations and none patrolled the city, according to news reports. About 300 soldiers of the army’s elite Airborne Special Forces Group established checkpoints throughout the city.

“This is an action that is taking place with the full cooperation of the mayor,” said Alberto Rodríguez, a spokesman for the Nuevo Laredo city government.

Mexican military officials said the army would patrol the city with the assistance of state and federal police but declined further comment.

In Matamoros, 600 police officers were confined to police stations and were being questioned by federal authorities, according to media reports.

The similar operation last year in Tijuana lasted three weeks, with more than 3,500 soldiers and federal agents sent into the city. Many police patrolled unarmed, and a few were seen with slingshots until their weapons were returned to them.

In the months since, violence related to drug trafficking and organized crime has continued in Tijuana unabated.

At least 17 people were killed in the border city last week, including three senior police officials, one of whom was shot in his home alongside his wife and two daughters.

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